Zhuhai-Chongqing Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 In 2002, Zhuhai built twinning partnership with Chongqing in East-West poverty alleviation cooperation and was assigned the task of poverty reduction in Wushan, Wuxi and Fengjie County of Daba mountanious area in Chongqing.

　　Zhuhai City Party Committee and Government leaders attach great importance to the East-West poverty alleviation cooperation and require the party committees and governments at all levels and relevant departments to establish the strategic thinking of overall poverty alleviation according to the requirements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, overcome the difficulties to do a good job in East-West pairing-off poverty alleviation and adopt a series of measures to carry out all-round multi-channel East-West pairing-off poverty alleviation in accordance with the principle of "complementary advantages, mutual benefits, long-term cooperation and common development".

　　Adhering to the guideline of “development-oriented poverty alleviation”, it has established a diversified, multi-level results-oriented support mechanism featured government guidance, social support, multi-stakeholder involvement and focus highlighting to make “three breakthroughs” and achieve “five changes”: Improve the production and living conditions in poor areas starting with entire village advancement; promote the transfer of surplus labors of impoverished areas starting with trainings; and starting with poverty alleviation by industrialization, adjust industrial structure, enhance the vitality of economic development and gradually achieve the transition of the model of poverty reduction from simple “blood transfusion” of solving the problem of food and clothing to “blood making” for long-term sustained development, the transition of poverty reduction method from financial aid to improving technology and skill, the transition of the main body of poverty reduction from government to society and the transition of poverty reduction pattern from simple funding to interaction and mutual benefits. From 2002 to 2009, Zhuhai city government allocated 99.233 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for the twinned regions and all circles of society donated more than 33.5 million Yuan of for the implementation of poverty reduction projects. The financial funds were mainly used in the construction of infrastructure projects to improve the production and living conditions of poor people, including the construction of schools, hospitals, drinking water projects for human and livestock and rural roads and bridges in impoverished areas as well as the renovation of dangerous houses in poor villages. The social donations were mainly used to support the construction of rural schools and help poor families and needy students.

　　【Poverty alleviation by education】In order to improve the education conditions in three counties of Chongqing, from 2002 to 2009, Zhuhai City rebuilt and newly built 73 schools in Chongqing to solve the education problem of more than 40,000 primary and secondary school students, which alleviated the shortage of academic degree in three counties, changed the local educational backwardness and promoted the healthy development of local education. At the same time, it explored educational support mode and carried out vocational education and support work. In March 2005, 55 poor students at Grade III of the vocational schools in the three counties of Chongqing were enrolled in Zhuhai Vocational School free of charge and relevant department helped them to get jobs after graduation. In September 2005, the city publicly selected four excellent young teachers as the first batch to support the education in Wuxi County for a year. In April 2006, Zhuhai City Bureau of Education organized the primary and secondary schools in the city to donate books for Wuxi and a total of 400,000 books were donated, which laid a foundation for promoting the “two basis” tackling work in Wuxi County and contributed to the improvement of the educational backwardness of Wuxi.

　　【Medical services and training】To improve the health conditions and the level of medical services in three counties of Chongqing and solve the problem of seeing a doctor of local farmers, from 2002 to 2009, Zhuhai City newly built or rebuilt 43 hospitals (family planning stations) in the remote, economically weak, poverty-stricken towns, covering most of the towns in the three counties, which solved the problem of seeing a doctor of more than 900,000 farmers. Meanwhile, the health departments of Zhuhai City carried out medical and health support activities. Since 2004, it has sent 26 medical service people to provide health care services and carry out trainings for the three counties in Chongqing and was praised by local people.

　　【Labor transfer training】 In 2002, Zhuhai began to carry out labor support work and implemented the labor poverty reduction project of “training one person, transferring one labor and lifting one family out of poverty”. Through organizing enterprises to hold job fairs in Chongqing and establishing market labor information and labor service stations of the three counties in Zhuhai, it carried out labor transfer trainings for the three counties. As of the end of 2009, it had trained more than 6,000 local farmers and employed 17,638 surplus labors of the three counties in Chongqing to work in Zhuhai through the organized, large-scale recruitment activities.

　　According to the market demands, taking technical training agencies as a platform, relying on businesses’ order trainings, through carrying out targeted work position trainings for rural labors of the twinned counties, Zhuhai strived to train personnel for impoverished areas, transfer employments locally and promote the transfer of local rural labors towards the secondary and tertiary industry. In the past three years, it has organized trainings for more than 800 people, mainly the leaders for becoming rich and rural surplus labors.

　　【Poverty alleviation through development of tourism resources】The three counties of Chongqing are rich in tourism resources and have unique natural scenery. To support the development of tourism resources in the three counties, Zhuhai City has organized reputable powerful tourism enterprises to conduct field research in the three counties for many times, made unified publicity for the new look and new landscape of the Three Gorges reservoir and opened up two tourist routes from Zhuhai to Wushan, which promoted the development of tourism industry in the Three Gorges.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】Based on the poverty situation of the twinned counties, the government mobilized all circles of society to participate in poverty alleviation and implemented the social poverty alleviation project of “Five Ten Thousand” for three consecutive years since 2002. Under the leadership of the models and leaders of five municipal departments, the organs, enterprises, institutions, units, schools and social groups were all actively involved in the "hand-in-hand" helping-the-poor campaign. Since the implementation of the project, it has achieved remarkable results. According to statistics, the activity of "helping ten thousand poor families by ten thousands cadres" raised 15 million Yuan of funds; the "activity of subsidizing needy children in three counties of Chongqing to go to school" raised more than 6 million Yuan; the "activity of donating 30,000 books of ten thousand young people" donated more than 90,000 books; the "activity of donating 100,000 pieces of clothes of 10,000 families" donated more than 300,000 pieces of clothes; and the "activity of transferring 10,000 qualified labors through training" held trainings for more than 10,000 people. Through the social poverty alleviation, 17,565 poor families received assistance and tided over the difficulties, 18,415 poor students who were going to drop out of school continued their studies and a number of rural young people went out to work and embarked on the way of shaking off poverty and getting rich.

　　Zhuhai City strived for the support of the whole society to explore the social aid system. From 2002 to 2009, through the coordination of Zhuhai City, Hong Kong Ethics Development Centre, Macau Calligraphers Association, Zhuhai Red Cross Society, Taiwan Business Association, relevant enterprises and other social sectors donated a total of 12.5 million Yuan for the impoverished areas of Chongqing, built a number of Hope Schools and donated some computers and books for them.

　　【Economic and trade cooperation】Development-oriented support based on complementary advantages and resource sharing to promote the economic development in poor areas is the work focus of the counterpart support of Zhuhai City. Over the years, Zhuhai guided many enterprises to invest in the western regions to promote the economic and trade development and achieve win-win situation. Zhuhai Gree Group Corporation invested 40 million Yuan in Wanzhou of Chongqing City jointly with local government in 1999 to build an electrolytic container factory with an annual production capacity of 300 million. From 2001 to 2004, it put in 400 million Yuan to establish an air-conditioner manufacturing base in the high-tech development zone of Chongqing with an annual production capacity of 3 million sets and annual output value of 4 billion Yuan, which paid taxes of 170 million Yuan in total, recruited more than 3,800 local people, and promoted the economic development and the transfer of rural surplus labors in local areas.

　　【Personnel training and exchange】From 2003 to 2007, Zhuhai City sent excellent young cadres to Chongqing every year. From 2002 to 2009, it organized five trainings for more than 400 party and government leaders of the three twinned countries in Chongqing, which changed the development ideology of local party and government leaders and business managements.

　　As the impoverished areas lack economic and trade personnel and the comprehensive quality is not high, Zhuhai timely adjusted the pro-poor strategies, updated the poverty reduction models changed the ideology and updated relevant knowledge. In order to enhance the overall ideology for the development of economy and trade and improve the overall quality of the personnel in the twinned regions, it implemented the training program for the entrepreneurs in economic and trade field and the foreign economic and trade cadres in the three counties of Chongqing to train “blood-making” talents for the economic and trade development of the twinned counties. From 2002 to 2009, it organized five trainings for more than 400 party and government cadres of the three counties of Chongqing to enhance the overall quality and scientific development capacity of the personnel in the twinned regions.

　　【Achievements of East-West pairing-off poverty alleviation】Since the implementation of counterpart support for three counties of Chongqing, Zhuhai City expanded the ideas, sincerely did practical things to help the poor, adopted various assistance measures to promote the poverty reduction of the impoverished areas and establish a good image of Zhuhai City in poverty reduction. According to statistics, as of December 2009, Zhuhai City allocated a total of more than 132.733 million Yuan of funds for the three counties of Chongqing, of which 99.233 million Yuan was financial anti-poverty fund and 33.5 million Yuan was social donation for poverty alleviation projects. It rebuilt or newly built 73 schools and 43 hospitals, covering most of the towns of the three counties, solved the education problem of more than 40,000 primary and secondary school students and solved the difficulty of seeing a doctor of more than 900,000 farmers. It helped the three counties of Chongqing build 16 bridges and thus fundamentally solved the road problem of more than 170,000 people; it constructed a number of drinking water projects for human and livestock and constructed demonstration villages for “entire village advancement”. Zhuhai City has achieved periodical results in poverty alleviation cooperation and was welcomed by Chongqing people and praised by the State Council. In November 2004, Zhuhai City Labor and Social Security Bureau and Zhuhai City Bureau of Education were titled as “Advanced Collectives in National East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation” by the State Council. Vice Mayor Deng Qunfang and the sending cadre of Zhuhai in Chongqing Chen Yanxin were titled as “Advanced Individuals in National East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation”. In December 2008, Zhuhai City Poverty Alleviation Office was titled as “Advanced Collectives in National East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation” by the State Council Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development and Director of Zhuhai City Poverty Alleviation Office Xu Congmao and former Party Secretary of Zhuhai Land and Resources Bureau Luo Chi were titled as “Advanced Individuals in National East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation”.

　　(Zhuhai City Poverty Alleviation Office)